I Love You More Than I'm Afraid (Our Forevers #2), Rebel Hart [best adventure books to read .txt] 📗

“That’s not true,” she said. “I owe you… so many apologies.”

She slipped forward out of the chair and dropped onto the floor. There wasn’t a lot of space between the chair and where I was sitting, so she had to squeeze in between me and it, but I didn’t really care. She placed her legs on either side of me, and her hands fell against my legs. Immediately, she pulled them back, but I reached forward and took them into my own. It’d been so long since I’d felt her that I found myself just rubbing my thumb over her skin. The knuckles of her right hand were red—proof that the story she’d told me about hitting Ceradi was genuine.

“How did things get so fucked up between us?” I asked.

She just twisted her head from side to side. “I don’t know. I know that I made a bunch of really bad decisions all in a row, but I thought you understood. I didn’t think it would make you hate me.”

“I don’t hate you,” I said, but she looked up at me as if she didn’t believe me. “I don’t. I could never hate you. I was just… so heartbroken. I couldn’t believe you’d do that stuff to me, and it made me angry that I couldn’t be with you when I knew you felt the same way about me. It made me angry that no matter how hard I try, I just can’t get over you.”

“Yeah, me too.”

Her eyes locked into mine, and I guess the emotions of the day and sitting so close while holding hands just overcame us. She leaned in to kiss me and I didn’t stop her, letting her set her lips on mine. I had to fight back tears at the feeling of it; it had been so long. I never thought I’d have to stop kissing Hannah, so the last time we kissed before that, I’d treated it just like any other. I wish I’d treated every single kiss like it’d be our last one, just in case.

I wouldn’t make that mistake with this one.

She started to pull back, but I fought against it, pushing forward. I lifted my hands to rest on either side of her face and held her against me. Her hands drifted up to my sides and clung to me there, supporting my decision to take a little more. If this was the last time I ever got to kiss her, I wanted to remember everything about it.

And I wanted her to remember too.

Eventually I pulled back, noticing the pink blush on Hannah’s face. It brought a smile to mine—I’d forgotten how cute it was. I flicked a finger across her cheek before bringing my hands back down to hers. “Oh man, I’ve wanted to do that for like, so long.”

Hannah grinned a little. “Yeah. Me too.”

“We have to figure this out, Marie,” I said. “These unresolved feelings are hurting the people we love. We need to do something about them.”

“Like what?” she said.

Wasn’t that the question of the hour. “Maybe we need to try that friendly thing that you talked about. I was being selfish and petty. If we can deal with one another, it’ll be better for Aria and Tristan. You were right.”

But Hannah shook her head. “No. You were right.” She lifted her hand to my cheek and I leaned into the touch. “I can’t do that. I can’t just be friends with you. I want more than that.”

It was the first hope I’d had in a really long time. “Me too, but… I don’t want to share you. Even if it’s just for show.”

Hannah nodded. “I don’t want to share myself, even if it’s just for show.”

It sounded a little too good to be true. “Are you saying…?” It reminded me of when we first admitted that we loved one another. “Are we going to try again?”

“Well,” Hannah said and it deflated me a little. “There’s so much going on. A lot of emotions. Maybe we should wait to make a final decision until we’re a little less amped. You know, really think it over. We clearly don’t handle breaking up very well, so we should be really sure.”

“I mean, I’m willing to wait if you need time to think it over, but you’re the only thing in my life that I’ve ever been really sure about,” I said. “That’s what all this malfunctioning and breaking down has been about, not knowing how to deal with losing you. I don’t need time to decide. All I’ve wanted in my whole life is to be with you.” She opened her mouth to say something, but I stopped her by leaning in and giving her a less passionate but no less meaningful kiss. “Don’t. You said you wanted time because you need it. Take time. I’m here when you decide. But if you decide that you can’t do it, then I think that means we have to totally go our separate ways. We deal with one another when we have to, but other than that, we have to stay away from each other. It’s the only way we’ll get over each other.”

Hannah nodded, though the notion seemed to bring her discomfort. “Yeah.”

Though it was hard to walk away from her after finally being able to have a conversation about us that didn’t end in screaming or crying, if I stayed any longer I was going to start trying to convince her to be with me, and that wasn’t the point. Hannah had to think about our relationship seriously and if it was something she could do or not, which meant I had to give her the space to do that.

I stood up, smiling at the way she held onto my hand all the way until she wasn’t able to anymore, and then our fingertips parted. Though I wanted her to have an unhindered thought process, I still looked down at her